A S S A S S I N
by EA Games
Summary: Itachi has many talents, some obscure and when it comes down to it just disapointing. I mean, who wants a sexy criminal who can sing nursery rhymes on key? Ability # 39: Acting. He can care, really he can. AU, SakuIta


**A S S A S S I N**

_By: EA Games_

-

_Uchiha?_

…_yes?_

_Can you… act?_

_Act?_

_Yes._

_No._

_Are you certain?_

…_why?_

-

His eyes followed her body, keeping tabs on her ever graceful form.

She was spectacular, standing out from the crowd like a rainbow from the cloudy skies. Maneuvering through the tightly packed, well dressed, and richly covered bodies; she'd conversed with almost every other person in the room but him.

They would not give her rest.

His prey would never be alone, it seemed.

His dark suit and black silk hair helped him blend into the shadows of his isolated corner of the ballroom. As a waiter passed, coming out of the kitchens, he silently swiped a glass of deep red wine off his tray.

The waiter noticed nothing, until a moment later when he offered wine to a couple arguing quietly not twenty feet away from himself. The waiter frowns at the uneven number of wineglasses, but brushes it off and moves onto another group of people.

The couple returns to their argument.

Sipping absently at his wine he watched his target crinkle her nose in distaste at the man currently taking up her time. He had several drinks sitting at the table behind him, a clear sign that he was probably drunk. Judging by the look on the young woman's face, she could probably smell the alcohol on the man's skin, his breath.

If there was one kind of person Haruno Sakura disliked, he knew, it was a drunk. She figured men couldn't control what they did while drunk.

She had personal experience, the man watching her remembers, with drunks. After all, her father was one, and an angry abusive one at that.

His eyes flash scarlet when he sees the man reach out for her wrist, taking it in a bruising grip.

_He has no right,_ he thinks angrily, _to lay his filthy fingers on her._ His lips pull back in cruel resentment towards the man touching what should be his, what _is_ his, soon to be only his.

In seconds he is behind her, a dark shadow to the light female, baring features set harshly in a glare. He is silent, so his female does not notice him, but the drunk man does.

The drunk glances at him once, then back at Sakura, before taking a step back, pulling the girl to him. As if to… _protect_ her.

_He_ laughs shortly, out in one breath, gone in another. Dangerous.

Sakura struggles to get away from the other man, but he just frowns and holds her tighter about her wrists.

She cries out almost silently, but it is enough.

He sees red, and almost immediately the drunk is slumped against the wall, and Sakura is being led out gently, with a warm hand on her lower back, urging her further, and another on her forearm, thumb brushing soothingly across her abused wrist.

She allows herself to be controlled momentarily, because really, while she shouldn't trust this man in theory, he did 'save' her from a man who easily could've taken, and raped her. Maybe even killed her. In this city, women were mostly considered possessions, and she was one that regularly got locked in a closet and told she was worthless.

No one would care if something happened to her.

But this man had saved her despite her social standing. Unless… maybe he didn't know who she was? What if he had only saved her because he thought she was rich? What if he wanted a reward? Sakura's father was more likely to ring his neck then to pay his daughter's savior.

She was suddenly irrationally disappointed, and wanted very much to go back to the potential rapist. The disappointment the man would feel would make her feel even guiltier.

But the first words he spoke erased most, if not all of her doubt. "Sakura-chan? Are you all right? Did he hurt you?"

So he _did_ know who she was. Interesting. And _chan_? He said it almost mockingly.

She drew in a halting breath. "I'm fine, he didn't hurt me… who are you? Why did you… help me?"

An expression of surprise crossed his features before they softened considerably. "I'm no one important. And should I have not saved you?"

She avoided his gaze, starring down blankly at the street. Her voice was empty. "No, you should not have. Whatever you want in return? I don't think you'll be getting it."

He smiled and took her arm, nodding towards the walkway just to their left. "I want nothing in return. I think I'll take you home now, though."

She was subdued, for the time being, at least. Content to just be lead around, even if this man was not her father and it would definitely cause a scandal. At this point she didn't really care what happened to her.

"Sir, what is your name?"

His teeth gleam in the dim light when he smiles – or smirks, she isn't sure which. "No need for a Sir. You may call me… Itachi, if you wish."

"Well Itachi-san, I do hope you know that my house is in the other direction."

He actually laughs now. "Not anymore it isn't."

She looks at him in a dispassionate way, seemingly disinterested. "Really now?"

"Yes."

She nods. She might just die tonight, but at least if her heart could no longer beat, then it could no longer hurt.

-

Sasuke and Naruto stand side by side at her funeral.

Sasuke doesn't know why they even bothered, since they had no body to bury anyway. Her body had been completely ravaged, torn to shreds by what they have become to claim was a dog.

Saskue knows better. No dog could turn a beautiful young woman like her into something so… disgusting, and unrecognizable.

Naruto doesn't understand why Sasuke even bothered to come. When his pretty, bright, cheerful Sakura-chan had been alive Sasuke had cared nothing for her, only felt disdain when he saw her pink head approach in a crowd.

Of course Naruto knew better. Nobody could not love Sakura-chan, not even cold and heartless Sasuke.

Sakura's mother was in tears, leaning over an empty casket. She knew that she could've stopped this, prevented that night from ever happening.

Her father stands just behind the woman, strangely silent with a shocked expression carved permanently on his deep features. Right before the funeral began, his wife had told him that she was leaving him, going back home to her own parents. She refused to put up with him or his alcohol any longer.

And in the farthest reaches of the church, in a corner shrouded in shadows, a man with brilliantly long hair stands behind a grand piano, playing a beautiful but disturbing melody as feather soft hair falls around his down turned face to hide the slight twist to his lips…

"…_She shall die tonight, my assassin was told, with no will to fight, and a heart so cold…_"

-

So yes. This actually started out as an assignment for school, where I had to use some Vocab words. Decided I would post it anyway. The past, present & future tenses are all messed up, I know. I may or may not fix that later. Depends on how lazy I am.

Thank You for reading!


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